To buy a kindle or not for my 8 year old.

My daughter is OBSESSED with reading. I love reading so am particularly pleased to see that she has fallen in love with reading. She's about to turn eight, and thinking ahead to Christmas, what she would really like is a kindle. I can see the pros and cons.Pro: making the transition to an electronic device would free up so much room from where her books are currently shelved, stacked and piled.Con: As much as I love my kindle, I do miss the pleasure of opening up a brand new book, you know - the whole holding carefully so not to ruin the spine, while you inhale the scent of the paper!

Anyway... I digress. So, currently my daughter reads a few books that have illustrations (she's just finished reading Patterson's middle school books and she's got wimpy kid to read next, after she's finished her Dahl books). If I were to get her a kindle; what are the illustrations like on the kids books? Will she be missing out? Do I have to buy a paperwhite to get quality images (not purchasing her a fire) or would an older style kindle be okay in terms of images etc.

Is there a massive range of kids books, or is she going to end up with a mix of paper and electronic?

I'm just curious about other peoples experiences with children and kindles.

My 9 year old inherited my basic kindle when I got a Paperwhite. He is a vociferous reader and can read at least one book a day, so the kindle has been brilliant for him. When I first got my kindle I downloaded loads of books that I remembered reading as a child, and now my son is working his way through the What Katy Did books (and loving them!)

He still reads lots of paper books but the kindle has proved invaluable especially when going away.

There are lots of children's books available as ebooks, certainly most of the new ones on the market (and older books are being kindleized all the time). I have been very lucky and have picked up lots of free books, cheap books by new authors and books in sales. Websites like ereaderiq are brilliant for popping wanted books on and they'll let you know when the price drops.

As far as illustrations goes, books like the Roald Dahl books with QuentIn Blake's pen and ink drawings look no different on the kindle (as long as the book has been formatted properly), anything with photographic or highly coloured illustrations will look better on a tablet device, but I imagine as your daughter is getting older the books she reads will be more and more text based.

The kindle certainly hasn't replaced paper books in our house but ours are used daily. Sorry to be so long-winded, but hope this is of some help in making your decision.

Both my daughters have had (Paperwhite) kindles for a few years (although were older than your daughter, E.L., when they first got them).

My younger daughter is never without hers. She devours books and loves being able to download a new one by a favourite author in just one click. Before going on holiday, she made sure she had several new ebooks to read, and the kindle slipped easily into her hand luggage.

As for availability, there's a massive choice out there! As you are probably aware, you can choose to browse the top hundred, or by theme. Just be prepared to be a little more out of pocket when she cottons onto how easily accessible all this new and exciting reading material is!

And, of course, there's always the library for real books which you can give back, leaving your house clutter-free!

I had a kindle ap on my son's tablet, but we ended up erasing it. You can get ebooks on almost any type of tablet though, so it is working looking into. Our problem was that he prefers modern books. You can get many of the really old books for free, but modern books with a real publisher cost almost as much as buying them in print new - I usually go with used and save a few quid. Of course there are many under a pound, but most of these are self published and while you might get lucky and get one good in one 30, it isn't cost or time effective for me to buy 29 £ 1 pound books to get one my son will enjoy when I just buy one good book in print for £6.

I'd suggest you make a list of the type of books your child enjoys and carefully compare prices before ordering. For instance, I paid £5.00 to preorder the new Diary of a Wimpy Kid in hardback. To buy it for kindle would have cost me £7.99. The most expensive books I buy usually are not available in kindle at all.

But many children do find reading with a kindle more cool - and it really depends on the type of books she wants to read. Just don't be fooled by the massive number and freebies and cheap books. Look to see if it is published by a reputable publisher before wasting your hard earned money - or worse, subjecting your child to stream of books written so poorly as to put a child off reading for life. If at all possible - I would go for Kindle fire, where at least she can use it to surf the net, play apps etc... if she decides the ebooks are not her thing.